Good, bad and very bad part-time jobs for women? Re-examining the importance of occupational class for job quality since the ‘great recession’ in Britain

Britain has long stood out in Europe for its extensive but low quality part-time labour market dominated by women workers, who are concentrated in lower-level jobs demanding few skills and low levels of education, offering lower wage rates and restricted advancement opportunities. This article explo...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Warren, Tracey, Lyonette, Clare
Format: Article
Published: SAGE Publications 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/49436/
Description
Summary:Britain has long stood out in Europe for its extensive but low quality part-time labour market dominated by women workers, who are concentrated in lower-level jobs demanding few skills and low levels of education, offering lower wage rates and restricted advancement opportunities. This article explores trends in part-time job quality for women up to and beyond the recession of 2008/9, and asks whether post-recessionary job quality remains differentiated by occupational class. A pre-recessionary narrowing of the part-time/full-time gap in job quality appears to have been maintained for the women in higher level part-time jobs, while part- and full-timers in lower-level jobs suffered the worst effects of the recession, signalling deepening occupational class inequalities among working women.